Thursday, April 16, 2009

Time Warp to 1988

In an attempt to get me to stop using her house as my extra storage space, and arguing the fact that I had now been living in my own house for over 2 years, my mother settled two large boxes of "Old Stuff" into my trunk the last time I was visiting. She said it was a box of my love letters that she wasn't going to toss. I think she was being facetious.

After driving around with said Old Stuff for a week and having it rattle around every time I took a sharp turn or raced through a yellow traffic light, I finally got around to sifting through it all last week during my Hunt for Prismacolors and Discarded Art Supplies.

No love letters. But I was surprised to come across something that I had thought long junked...some old tarot cards I had started to draw. There's no date on these, but I think it must have been around 1988. I have some vague recollection of learning about this thing called the Tarot in junior high, and being fascinated by it. I was determined to make my own deck (I never got further than 7 cards + 1 sketch). I was always that kind of kid who would see something and rather than want to buy it, instantly start to deconstruct it in my mind to figure out how to want to make my own.

At any rate, I thought I'd share some of these very early attempts. For Laughs, for Mockery, for Encouragement to fellow artists who often find themselves discouraged looking at the finished products of professional artists and wondering from whence they spring (yes, practice does bring about evolving skill!), for that bit of Nostalgia at seeing the seedlings of what eventually led to the project I finished this year.

9 comments:

  1. Wow thank you for sharing these older sketches. It's so amazing to see how your personal symbolism and skills have grown! Funny how we all start with the traditional and then go off on our own paths.

    This reminds me I should pull out some old stuff from under my bed and post it for all the world to see. It's been hiding there since 91 I think.

    Somehow, I hadn't seen the Lovers from the new set. It's absolutely gorgeous! I must go to find a larger version of it to view now.

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  2. What fun to see the comparison! i threw out most of my old stuff, only to find it years later hanging on my old roommates wall :) He was always pulling my stuff out of the garbage...and some of it i wish he hadnt...but it certainly is fun to see now! :) Thanks for sharing!

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  3. Yeah it's always entertaining to go back to your old stuff and see how things have evolved!

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  4. Thank you for sharing! :D I do feel... encouraged!

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  5. Thanks so much for sharing your early drawings. I think they have that diamond-in-the-rough quality. Especially The Hermit and The Lovers.

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  6. "Encouragement to fellow artists who often find themselves discouraged looking at the finished products of professional artists and wondering from whence they spring"

    Exactly. This was an excellent exercise and did me a world of good. :-)

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  7. Thanks, that helped a lot. :)

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  8. Wow! Amazing Tarot illustrations you have done!( You were quite the artists even at 12 years old )Lovely to see how your gift has evolved over the years...You have been a great inspiration to me :)) I have only been painting since 2002, got discouraged and put the brushes down for 2 years, just recently got inspired to start painting again.

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